Adorable Ewe Week One — The Sleeves

Michelle Hunter’s Knit Alongs (KALs) are usually a mystery with several advance clues. For Adorable Ewe, the April KAL, the clues were 1) a baby sweater with 2) a sheep motif.

I expected a raglan sweater, knit on circular needles, from the top down or bottom up AND with a sheep motif in the yoke. Boy, was I ever wrong.

Barnsie, the Bear, shows off the Week One Adorable Ewe baby sweater sleeves

Week One knitting turns out to be — drum roll — two sleeves! Easily knit with simple increases, the sleeves were accomplished in about 3 hours. The HiKoo Simpliworsted knits up smoothly and has excellent stitch definition. It’s good stuff and we have a nice sale price on it right now.

Here are a couple of comments on my Week One Adorable Ewe knitting:

WRITE OUT EVERY ROW Even though the knitting is simple, I still write out every single row. Then I check off each row as I knit through the pattern. Well, actually I use a heavy dot, not a check mark, to indicate that a row is done. The heavy dot can be duplicated for the second sleeve, whereas a check mark is harder to duplicate. Just my idiosyncrasy, but that’s what I do. I like the clarity of being able to put down my knitting at any time, pick it up and, at a glance, know what comes next. My written out rows are simple, straightforward, and helpful.

PLACE INCREASES AWAY FROM EDGE Michelle Hunter’s directions place the increases two stitches away from the edges, a placement that makes them a design element of the garment. Those little openings that form from using a Make One Left or Make One Right give a kind of eyelet pop to the seamline. They are a nice detail on a hand knit garment and keep the twist of the increase away from the edge.

I’m using Color 24 — Bluebell. It’s a medium gentle blue that stays away from purple or green tints. Just a soft blue, a lovely color to be knitting.

Buttercream, Color 42, is also calling my name. I’m starting a second cardigan in this lusciously, deliciously named color. You know that butter lover’s foodie phrase, “Trust the cow, not the chemist?” Well, I’m a lover of butter, and yellow, as you can see from this journal page from March.

A sampling of watercolor yellows from Wanda’s journals

Anyway, the second cardi will be Color 42 — Buttercream. Back to the Bluebell cardigan. I’m planning to put a gray sheep on it using Color 38 Seattle Sky.

Bluebell, Seattle Sky, Buttercream

Stay tuned. There’s a sheep in Week Two!

AND if you need the pattern, check out this blog post for all the details and links.